Chapter 2: What She Carried Down the Aisle
I walked into that chapel in a borrowed dress.
Mabel had called her cousin, who lived twenty minutes away and was almost my size.
The gown was simple — ivory cotton, no lace, no pearls.
Nothing like my mother's.
But I carried my mother's dress in a garment bag over my arm.
Every guest saw it as I walked down the aisle.
Eunice sat in the front row, perfectly composed.
When she saw me still walking toward her son, something shifted behind her eyes.
Not guilt.
Calculation.
Drake reached for my hand at the altar.
He leaned close.
"You okay?"
"I need to tell you something before we say a word to that priest."
He went still.
I kept my voice low enough that only he could hear.
"Your mother destroyed my dress this morning.
I have her on camera.
And she made a phone call about amended trust papers — papers I've never seen and you've never mentioned."
Drake's face didn't collapse.
It went very, very quiet.
"What papers?" he said.
That was when I knew he hadn't signed anything.
And that was when Eunice stood up from her seat.
"Drake." Her voice cut across the chapel like a blade.
"We need to speak.
Right now.
Before this goes any further."
Two hundred people turned to look at her.
Drake didn't move.
"Sit down, Mother," he said.
May you like
She didn't.
What Eunice said next made three people in that room go pale — including Drake's family lawyer, who was sitting in the fifth row.
